No Mortal Thing: A Thriller

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘I want to say my piece about her. In a theatre she has only a walk-on part. Our dear Consolata is not the lead in the performance. She thinks she is, but she isn’t. She’s a convenience. Am I right? Time will tell. I’ll drive.’

  Carlo took the wheel.

  It was the hour before dawn, the time when men died in their beds, the lucky and the few. The time when the storm squads of the cacciatore would break into a bunker or flood a safe house, throw a flash-and-bang grenade and take a prisoner. It was the time when a man eased from a woman’s bed because soon a cuckolded husband would be back from a night’s thieving, the time when dogs slept and owls were quiet. Very soon the cockerel would crow, not that Bernardo would hear it. He tossed in his bed.

  The light was on. He heard the whine of the air-conditioner, the hum of the refrigerator and the regular drip of condensation. It would soon be the start of an important day for him, for Giulietta, for Marcantonio. A grim smile. In vest and underpants, he padded towards the basin where his toothbrush was and his shaver. He would not go back to sleep. He would watch something on television. It would be an important day for his daughter, his grandson and for Father Demetrio, who had been his friend. He took no pleasure from what would happen that day to the priest, nor any sadness. After Giulietta had been to Brancaleone she would go for her weekly rendezvous with the clerk from the Palace of Justice in Reggio. She would meet him near the uppermost peaks of Montalto, and he would tell her the latest developments. Bernardo’s privation in the bunker was nearing its end and she would bring confirmation of it. But first she would go to Brancaleone.

  He used to go to Brancaleone every Thursday afternoon. He smiled to himself. Peering into the mirror he saw his ravaged old face crack in the lines of his smile. It was a private moment. Sometimes – not often – he went on a Tuesday afternoon as well. A fine woman. She had made him laugh, and almost made him fall in love. A woman who had lived for three and a half years in Brancaleone in an apartment that he had paid for in cash and overlooked the beach. She had summoned the courage to deliver an ultimatum. She had called a halt to their relationship because he would not divorce his wife. To separate legally from Mamma, to marry again, was impossible. It would have broken a relationship of convenience with a family from Locri, and he did good business with that family. It was an alliance of substance. That woman now lived in Sicily. It had happened a long time ago, when Giulietta was a child.

  He had not flaunted her, had maintained the greatest discretion, had never embarrassed Mamma, had never told anyone: a lawyer from Milan had handled the purchase of the apartment. When he went, less often now, to Brancaleone he always looked for the apartment and the balcony, expecting to see her . . .

  A busy day ahead. Excitement still stirred in him at the thought of a killing done in his name.

  Stefano had been out for a half-hour and had used his time well. He had polished the interior of the City-Van, using a spray on the plastic, then working at it with a cloth, and had brought out a stiff brush to clean the seat on which she would sit. He loved Giulietta alone among the family.

  She came out of the house wearing a smart suit and carrying a lightweight briefcase, which would be for effect only and was probably empty. He heard the drone of the scooter and the kid’s lights powered up the track. He might have been her father. For that he would have been killed – not pleasantly. But the risk had fuelled the thrill.

  It had not happened often, in days long past, often when the heat was suffocating and the padrino was away for a day’s discussion with allies. There would have been lemonade on the kitchen table. Mamma had begun it. He would not have dared to. Surprisingly, she was tender. Stefano would sit on a hard chair and she would pour the lemonade, then crouch over him, unbutton his fly, and put the rubber on him. Then she would hitch up her skirt and lower herself onto him. If the padrino had known, Stefano’s death would have been nightmarish, and his corpse would never have been found. Would Mamma have survived? He had seen the family’s reaction when the scandal of Annunziata’s affairs became known – and she had refused to follow the constraints of the vedova bianca. Slow, exquisite lovemaking. She’d had a sensitivity that he doubted she ever offered to her husband. A hot day, no wind, sweating from outside work, and the supply of condoms had run short. They had done it, and that night, after his return, she had given herself eagerly, as she told it, to her husband and had not made him withdraw. The dates matched. There was a chance that Giulietta was Stefano’s, and a chance that she was not. It was many years since he had been with Mamma, on the chair by the kitchen table, and now she touched him only rarely with a little gesture of shared intimacy.

  He spoke briefly to the kid, and they checked their phones. The scooter went and its lights caught the men who were down the lane, watching – close enough, if called.

  He opened the door for Giulietta. He had used a scent spray in the car so that she would not be put off by the smell of old oil and accumulated sweat. He thought it good that she was going to meet the Englishman early: she would catch him when his concentration was lowest and do the best deal. It was unusual, in an ’Ndrangheta family, for a woman to play such a part. He thought she did it well – better than the little shit, Marcantonio. She might have been his daughter but Stefano was not over-familiar with her. She sat on the cleaned seat, thanked him absently, and he closed the door for her. His phone did not trill so the road ahead would be clear.

  He pulled away. He heard the cockerel crowing and wondered how much longer Marcantonio would sit in the yard with the shotgun, and what legacy the little shit had left them. He wondered how the day would eke out – and why a man would come so far and risk so much to end up with parallel scratched lines on a worthless vehicle. He assumed that by now he would have gone back to where he had come from.

  He set off for Brancaleone, the coast and saw, in the distance, the first smear of dawn.

  They had done it and could not undo it – neither would accept the burden of individual blame. They had not considered the consequences. Lunacy . . .

  He had come, taken their food and disappeared back down the slope. There had been neither sight nor sound of him since. They had good night-vision equipment, the same as the regular military used and the secret service, and they knew that Marcantonio was on the seat at the end of the trellis, with the dogs. They had seen Giulietta leave with the driver, the cockerel had crowed, and the day would soon start. Mamma always came out of the kitchen door early with food for the chickens. They could follow her part of the way if they used the ‘heat-seeker’, but the batteries were damp so it was useless now.

  They didn’t know where he was. They had not transmitted the picture they had taken of him when they had given him the food. Fabio and Ciccio had acknowledged that there were moments in even the most illustrious careers when information was suppressed, for reasons that were not easily explained. Why was he there? All they had was a meaningless statement concerning a woman’s face. They had absorbed the panorama below them without difficulty. They knew the ritual timelines of the family and its protectors, who were down the track, and had observed their routines. They knew, too, that the padrino was close by, but he was careful and had outwitted them.

  Ciccio had said quietly, ‘If we get the old goat, we get him. If we don’t then I won’t cry myself to sleep. I’ll forget him and move on.’

  The quiet lulled them. If nothing developed there would be just one more day. Their rubbish, kit and bedding would come out with them, and it would be as if they hadn’t lived in the cave. The rats would have free rein. Both were awake, but not alert.

  The empty jar was close to Fabio’s hand, with the screw-on lid perforated for air circulation. When morning came, and the sun settled on the stone ledge in front of them, there was a good chance that a scorpion fly would materialise, a beautiful creature that Fabio had come to respect. Its forward feelers were as long as its body, and its legs were thin as hair; the wings were long and tucked back when it alighted, and
at the base of the body the tail was honey-coloured and pointed at the tip from which its name came. Sad to see it trapped in the jar.

  They were a peculiar breed, those who mounted watch on others, observing a target’s movements, and likely to be damned. He didn’t know if they had the stomach to catch more insects before time was called on Operation Scorpion Fly.

  When the light came it was Ciccio’s turn to do breakfast. There was stillness in front of them, quiet, a sort of peace.

  The slight tide of the Mediterranean pulled back. Bentley Horrocks walked on wet sand. The wind whipped his face. He felt cleansed. There was enough light for him to see the ripples, the water was cold on his feet and the sand clung to his skin. He didn’t do holidays. He’d send Trace and her sister away together, and Angel could take warm-weather breaks with the kids – they did the South of France or yacht cruises among the Croatian islands. He’d go to Margate to see his mother, no further, and he’d work, the phone – a different one every other day – latched to his ear, deals done, scores settled.

  He felt good, and confident enough to let his anger surge.

  They had sent a boy, showing no respect for Bent Horrocks. It would be different today, later this morning, Humphrey, the lawyer, had promised. The big man, the boss. He rehearsed them, the lines in his head. Peasants, weren’t they? They had the trade stitched up, the stuff coming on the long sea route from South America, but they were still peasants. He’d take no shit from them. He’d have guarantees of supply dates, and there’d be no payment until delivery reached him. He could have talked through the tactics with Jack, but he was half Italian – might have gone native and forgotten where his lifestyle came from. The lawyer had definitely gone native, and was in their pockets. He had not sought advice, didn’t need it. He was content . . .

  God, Mum, in the apartment he had bought her at Margate, looking out on Marine Terrace and the beach, would have cackled if she’d seen him with his trousers rolled to the knee and walking in the darkness in the sea. She would have howled with laughter.

  The stress of London, of running territory in Peckham, Rotherhithe and Deptford, keeping back the shites who snapped at his ankles, was behind him. He’d walk a bit further before he turned back.

  He’d seen the driver leave, with Giulietta, and the kid depart on his scooter. He’d heard the cockerel crow. He hadn’t seen the dogs, or Marcantonio, while the kitchen light had been on. It still lit the yard.

  He made a mental checklist. Normally he would have made sure his shoes were clean, his tie straight, his jacket not too creased, that his laptop and BlackBerry were charged and the work for his next appointment was loaded, then glanced through his schedule.

  Today the checklist was short: a tyre iron, a penknife, the stick and the pocket torch, which he could use only on the track and behind the sheets. He did not know if, from the hiding place, he would hear cries for help when the cable was cut. He didn’t know where the air vent was, but there had to be one. There was so much he didn’t know.

  A last pause and a last listen. He heard the wind in the leaves, and the wolf below him. He had kept vigil with the animal through the night. Together they had endured.

  Jago stepped forward, committed. His legs were stiff and his movements clumsy. The night was hard around him. The men behind and above might have seen him from their eyrie. He knelt, swung his legs into the void and scrabbled for a grip. His lead foot found a secure stone, and he was away from the security of the cleft between two great boulders.

  He went down. Ledges and cracks in stone to hold his weight, the stick in his hand to guide him. He could make out the sheets that hung on the line, screening the path – he needed the place where the third sheet was against the fourth. He would have been close to the wolf but didn’t hear it. He went lower. He saw a film in his head, the one that had been screened every Christmas when he was a kid, and heard the great lines. A man jumped off a ten-storey building, and as he’d gone down on each floor people had heard him say, ‘So far so good. So far, so good.’ About right. Another line, same movie: a man had stripped off and jumped into a mass of cacti and was asked why he’d done it. ‘It seemed a good idea at the time.’ A stone slid from under him, bounced, rolled away. Then was still.

  The eruption was total. The crows and the pigeons thrashed at leaves and branches and rose, screaming, into the darkness.

  The torch came on – but the boy had been in the kitchen. The torch had a strong narrow beam and raked over the hillside. Jago went down on his knees, then his stomach, and tried to burrow but was on unforgiving rock.

  14

  Every bird rose in flight. The noise split the darkness. If there had been earth under him, Jago would have scraped at it with his fingernails. Impossible. He tried to snuggle lower, but had to see what happened in front of him. The torch was powerful, had a sharp-edged beam.

  It would be Marcantonio with the torch. Jago realised he’d been duped. He had thought himself intelligent, street-wise and had believed that the boy’s patience was exhausted. Wrong. At the bank, if he had made a mistake, he would expect to be hauled before a mini Star Chamber – Wilhelmina and two grey-faced men – and made to understand that the bank had to put right the loss to a client. A million, a thousand or a hundred euros, whatever the sum the gravity of the error was emphasised. No one was here to watch over him. He thought the men in the camouflage suits, above and behind him – who had his photograph – would be cursing him, with good reason: the torch beam threatened them, as well as Jago.

  It had started high in the trees where the crows and pigeons had been, but now raked over the leaves, branches and rock faces. It seemed to pry into the little crannies where there was shadow and wipe away darkness. It moved steadily, avoided nothing, paused where something was unclear, then moved again.

  The dogs screamed. Jago had had his head down and dared to lift his face fractionally to peer below him. The scream became a howl. The torch beam would have found the wolf, enough to make the eyes light up, two spots of gold. The dogs were barking, furious but not yet brave enough to scamper from the safety of Marcantonio. The light came back.

  He thought the wolf did not have the strength to leap off the rock where it had been through the night. It would stay and fight for the final moments of its life. The beam, on full power, was locked on it. Jago could see part of its head – he thought its mouth was open, teeth showing. It was crouched. If it had not been for the injury, Jago thought, the wolf would have turned tail, slipped from rock to stone, jumped and manoeuvred, scurried, found cover and been gone in the darkness. But it was injured.

  The beam lit it.

  Then the light shook, was readjusted. The three dogs were flooded with light and danced at Marcantonio’s feet, rearing on their back legs and howling. If the wolf responded with growls or snarls, it did so too softly for Jago to hear. He saw why the beam meandered. It was full on Marcantonio’s face, then on his arm, which held the shotgun. The boy aimed the weapon, the shortened barrels were resting on his left arm. His left hand held the torch, which wobbled and wavered, searching for the wolf. Jago almost shouted, but the words stuck in his throat, a jumble about the beast getting clear, using these moments to find a refuge. He held his silence because that was survival.

  It was found.

  The wolf had risen half up and Jago saw the wound, dark-rimmed, pink at the heart.

  The barrel was up. The light was steady. The shadow thrown by the wolf’s head was still. First, the flash. Then the puff of the fumes from the barrel, and the crash of the shot. It toppled.

  The range was too great. Not a killing shot. The wolf would have been hit by a spray of pellets. The beam leaped off the animal, climbed and seemed to wash the rim of the rock that was in front of Jago’s head. He might have been seen and might not and— The beam found the beast.

  Jago thought the second shot, from the other barrel, was about to be fired. He was in darkness again. He supposed it would be like the death of a friend. He
had no friends who had died. His mother was estranged from her parents, and he didn’t know if they were alive or dead. The wife of a director in the City had died in hospital. No one had met her, but her husband received notes of sympathy from his colleagues. He felt for the wolf, and tears welled. He had the tyre wrench in his fist, tightly held. The wolf was upright. There was blood on its face and chest. Jago thought the animal was blinded. It seemed not to know what to do, where to go. It went forward, seemed to grope with its front paws, and fell. Jago heard stones and rocks spiral down with it.

  It came to rest.

  Still the dogs lacked courage. It was a dozen paces in front of them. They circled it. It seemed barely to have the strength to turn its head to face them. They barked at it. Marcantonio came close, the shotgun aimed, wary . . .

  An English class: a young teacher, fresh from training college, had made them read from Tennyson, ‘The Revenge’. An Elizabethan galleon had happened across a Spanish fleet, had been overwhelmed by cannon fire and was surrounded, gunpowder exhausted, most of the crew dead or maimed. Jago remembered a line of a survivor, who sees the Spanish circling them: ‘But they dared not touch us again, for they feared we still could sting.’ Neither the dogs nor Marcantonio went close to the wolf. Jago stood up to his full height.

  He had enough blow-back from the torch to see Marcantonio.

  It was a target. At the school, discuses had been thrown, hammers and javelins lobbed. He had thrown stones on the beach when his mother had taken him to Southend or Clacton. Now he hurled the tyre iron. It would have been the moment at which Marcantonio’s finger left the trigger guard for a close-range shot.